Toronto

Ontario does brisk business with 100,000 pot orders in 1st 24 hours

The Ontario Cannabis Store says it has received about 100,000 online orders in the first 24 hours that marijuana was legal in Canada.

Government-run online store says 12,000 orders came within 1st hour after legalization

A Ontario Cannabis Store website pictured on a mobile phone in Ottawa on Thursday, claiming high volume of orders and an apology for any inconvenience. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

The Ontario Cannabis Store says it has received about 100,000 online orders in the first 24 hours that marijuana was legal in Canada.

The government-run OCS says 12,000 of those orders came within the first hour after legalization Wednesday morning.

Ontario will have no brick-and-mortar cannabis stores until April 1, 2019, with the only legal retailer being a provincial government-run online store.

The OCS says the website launch has gone off without service interruptions and has seen more than 1.3 million unique visitors in the first 24 hours of operations.

It says customers started to receive marijuana orders on Thursday.

OCS president Patrick Ford says he is amazed by the volume of sales.